15 March 2015

Irish Colcannon

As St. Patrick's
Day is approaching, I thought I'd cook something Irish and ideally
green. After a while of browsing vegetarian, or potentially
vegetarian, Irish recipes I found Colcannon (Irish: cál ceannann "white-headed cabbage").
However I didn't use cabbage for this recipe, but thought that kale
would nicely update the dish into a more modern version. Also the
cabbages at my local shop were so white that no green would've been
to be seen. This organic kale was just perfect for the purpose. After
having read a few traditional Colcannon recipes, I decided my
ingredients and started cooking.

I once spent St.
Patrick's Day in Dublin, but missed the parade, as I found a nice pub
quite early on the day with my friend. We could see some of the
parade on television in the pub (!) when it was just a few metres
away outside... and then when we decided to leave the pub, the parade
had passed our point and only piles of rubbish were left on the
streets. Oh well, it was a fun experience nevertheless. Needless to
say that we then continued to another pub. I still like to tell the
story, which is possibly still a bit funnier than actually having
watched the parade. And now after this interlude, to the cooking of
the dish.

Peel the potatoes,
boil them until soft and then mash. Chop the onion and garlic finely
and cut the leeks into thin slices.

Start cooking the
onion, garlic and leeks in butter until they are soft. Then add the
kale and cook until it's wilted a little. Add the cider and let it
mostly evaporate. Then also add the grated cheddar and season with
salt and pepper. Combine the mash with the leek and kale mix and
serve.

If you also want
to serve veggie sausages on the side, fry them in olive oil until
browned. Also prepare any side salad that you want to serve with the
dish. I chose to serve just mixed salad leaves on the side.

In all its
greenness I also want to submit this dish to this month's Eat Your Greens challenge. This is a vegetarian cooking challenge
for dishes using green vegetables by Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table.

Who is The VegHog?

A vegetarian hobby cook and urban gardener born in Finland, currently living in Denmark. I try to develop my cooking skills by making a wide variety of veggie dishes, some of them traditional and some new creations. My favourites include veggie burgers, squashes, organic and local produce, cider, spelt, rye, pizzas, pasta dishes, risottos and sea-buckthorn.
Follow theveghog on Instagram and @TheVegHog on Twitter!